Moving an alias to DTPO moves the linked file instead

DEVONthink Tips
1

I have a large (1G+) .mov file that is part o a research project in DTPO. For size reasons, I don’t want to move the actual file into DTPO, so I created an alias for the .mov file and tried to move that alias into DTPO. Every time I do, it seems to move the actual .mov file. At least that what it looks like in DTPO. The file shows up in the viewer, and under size it shows the 1G+ size of the file, not the 1K size of the alias.

So my questions are:

  1. Is it actually moving the alias or the linked file?

  2. If it’s moving the large linked file, is there any way I can import one the alias?

2

DEVONthink doesn’t import aliases, it imports the original. Import doesn’t “move” files into databases; it copies them. If you don’t want the file imported, then index it.

3

Got it - thank you.

4

Just to say it – there’s not much a database is going to offer you by indexing a 1GB .mov, except tell you what that file’s metadata are. Tools > Show Properties.